The EPO and Morocco strengthen their partnership on
patents

Munich, 20 June 2013 -- EPO President
Benoît Battistelli and the Director-General of the Moroccan Industrial and Commercial
Property Office (OMPIC), Adil Elmaliki, signed a set of co-operation agreements yesterday in Munich
to strengthen the patent system in both Morocco
and Europe. The agreements concern, in particular,
renewed access to the EPOQUE Net search system for OMPIC examiners, plus
various training programmes and exchanges of expertise between the two offices.

President Battistelli paid tribute to "the vision that OMPIC
has developed for the Moroccan patent system and is implementing with rigour
and consistency." Director-General Elmaliki in turn stressed "the importance
for Morocco
of working bilaterally with the EPO; this co‑operation is reciprocal and benefits
the strategies of both partners."

The EPO and OMPIC have been co-operating for ten years now,
entering into a strategic partnership with the signature, at the end of 2010, of
the first agreement on the validation of European patents. This agreement, now
being ratified by Morocco,
aims at making the country more attractive for investors while at the same time
raising its capacity to support innovation. Its implementation will go hand in hand with
capacity-building at OMPIC, in both the examination of Moroccan filings and in
the dissemination of technological information in the country.

The validation agreement will enable users of the European
patent system to validate their applications and EPO-granted patents in Morocco in
addition to 40 European countries. European applications and patents validated for
Morocco
will have the same legal effects there as Moroccan ones and will be subject to
Moroccan law.